Wednesday, 13 April 2016

At this point of the term I am getting my students to review their goals, both academic and personal/dispositional, that they set at the start of the year. Given that one of my goals is to blog every time they do, it seems like a good time to look back on what I have achieved so far this year.

One of my goals, although I didn't get to the point of actually writing about this one, was to have a good work/life balance. I can quite categorically state that I haven't come anywhere near achieving this, but not in the way that you might think. Life has crash tackled me this term, and I have had a lot of 'stuff' to deal with. I think that I am doing that quite well, but I am really hanging out for the end of this term when I know that several of those life things will either be sorted, or will come together after a long process. School/work has been my sanity place, but I don't feel that it has had its fair share of the balance.

Another of my goals (also not stated) was to be a good hub coach. This is something where I actually have no idea how I'm going, but I do have in my plan to do a google form* survey to see how I'm going, so at least I can say that I am being aspirational. I feel that I am building a good relationship with each of my students and we can talk about their academic and personal stuff openly and purposefully. One of my stated goals was to have a clear learning objective for every lesson and to have it shared with the class in some medium. If I am honestly reporting on myself, I would have to say that I have a solid 'Not Yet' for this one, or maybe using our new curriculum levels reporting scale, 'Developing'. The idea of getting this into my planbook hasn't happened and so it has been completely random as to whether something has reminded me that I actually need to do it for a particular class. I will have to do some proper retraining of myself in planbook use for next term, and I think I need some sort of visual reminder on my pin-board too.My other stated goal is, I think, going well. That is, I feel I am making personal progress in developing a more compassionate attitude to students whom I find challenging. I haven't got anywhere with my teaching inquiry, or the formal aspects of this, but on the ground, in my classes, I am a lot more willing to listen, and to discuss non-productive behaviours or attitudes than I might have been previously. I know that this has made my classes more accessible and enjoyable for certain students, and it has for me too, as I don't have to pull out the grumpy teacher, get back on task thing, which both they and I hate. Now I just have to work out how to frame my enquiry so that it encompasses the progress I am already making... And it occurs to me that my next inquiry might have to be into how I can make those more accessible, enjoyable classes also be more productive.Reflecting generally, I think it is really positive to be getting my students to be blogging their goals and reflections, and it is for me also. If we do this, we keep thinking about it, and that means a much better chance that we will actually do what we say we are going to.Please let me know what you think, and please look in the sidebar at my students' blogs and give them some feedback on their goals and reflections too.* woohoo, I actually managed this! When I figure out how to set up Practicing Teacher Criteria sub-pages, and how to export results from google forms, I will put the results into the right place. Generally though, I am very happy with what my hublings have said.

Monday, 4 April 2016

Hub Task: Write a blog about a quote that you find relevant to you, without deleting AT ALL.

This is a reminder for me; today is not a day I feel like dancing, but I don't need to share that tiredness with everybody else. I can feel that I can still be an inspiration or a joy, or at least a small happy emoji for others.